In this article, we will see how to install whois utility on Ubuntu 20.04 based systems. If you are looking for the registration details of the domain, including the owner's name (or organization's name), contact information, registration and expiration dates, and more then there is no better tool than whois utility. All of need to do is to download and install the utility from default Ubuntu repository. This can be done by following few simple steps which has been described in below section.

 

How does it work 

Whenever you run whois command with a domain name or ip address, the command sends a query to WHOIS servers which then searches its database for the queried domain or ip address. The WHOIS server is basically determined from the top level domain. So for example, if you are searching for domain example.com then it will redirect the request to a WHOIS server which is responsible for handling ".com" domain registration. The database then look for registrant information and return the details to user based on registrar policies and the domain's privacy settings.

 

How to Install whois utility on Ubuntu 20.04

Also Read: ACL Mask in Linux (Access Control Lists Mask): Step by Step Guide

Step 1: Prerequisites

a) You should have a running Ubuntu 20.04 Server.

b) You should have sudo or root access to run privileged commands.

c) You should have apt or apt-get utility available in your Server.

 

Step 2: Update Your Server

Before installing any new packages, it is always essential to look for the latest updates and installed them first by using sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade command as shown below. This will safeguard your systems from any external or internal vulnerabilities.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

 

Step 3: Install whois 

In the next step, you can install whois utility by running sudo apt install whois command as shown below. This will download and install the package from default Ubuntu repo with all its required dependencies.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt install whois
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
whois
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 16 not upgraded.
Need to get 44.7 kB of archives.
After this operation, 279 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 whois amd64 5.5.6 [44.7 kB]
Fetched 44.7 kB in 1s (37.8 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package whois.
(Reading database ... 272511 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../archives/whois_5.5.6_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking whois (5.5.6) ...
Setting up whois (5.5.6) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ...

 

Step 4: Check Status

After successful installation, you can check the package status by running dpkg -s whois command as shown below. This will show the package installation status as you can see below.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ dpkg -s whois
Package: whois
Status: install ok installed
Priority: standard
Section: net
Installed-Size: 272
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 5.5.6
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.25), libidn2-0 (>= 2.0.3)
Description: intelligent WHOIS client
This package provides a commandline client for the WHOIS (RFC 3912)
protocol, which queries online servers for information such as contact
details for domains and IP address assignments.
It can intelligently select the appropriate WHOIS server for most queries.
.
The package also contains mkpasswd, a features-rich front end to the
password encryption function crypt(3).
Original-Maintainer: Marco d'Itri <md@linux.it>

 

Step 5: Check Version

You can also check the current installed package version by using whois --version command as shown below. As you can see the current installed version is 5.5.6.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ whois --version
Version 5.5.6.

Report bugs to <md+whois@linux.it>.

 

 

Step 6: Using whois

Now that whois utility is installed in the system, let's use it to find the information about a domain. For example, here we are querying information about domain example.com from WHOIS server using whois example.com command as shown below.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ whois example.com
   Domain Name: EXAMPLE.COM
   Registry Domain ID: 2336799_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
   Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.iana.org
   Registrar URL: http://res-dom.iana.org
   Updated Date: 2023-08-14T07:01:38Z
   Creation Date: 1995-08-14T04:00:00Z
   Registry Expiry Date: 2024-08-13T04:00:00Z
   Registrar: RESERVED-Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
   Registrar IANA ID: 376
   Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
   Registrar Abuse Contact Phone:
   Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
   Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
   Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
   Name Server: A.IANA-SERVERS.NET
   Name Server: B.IANA-SERVERS.NET
...............................................

 

Step 7: Uninstall whois

Once you are done using whois command, you can choose to uninstall it from your system by using sudo apt remove whois command as shown below.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt remove whois
[sudo] password for cyberithub:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
whois
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 16 not upgraded.
After this operation, 279 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading database ... 272519 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing whois (5.5.6) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ...